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Feeds
Feeds
08:13
27
Q: How do you handle a coworker who does not know how to work in a team?

MiltenI've been seven months in a small company of thirty people, I work with another guy, who also happens to be one of the first employees of the company, in the same project. This guy does not use the internal tools that we use for collaboration, does not reply when asked in these tools, during meet...

professionalism management work-environment manager
user568497
Our boss is the owner and he is aware, I have only been here for seven months and the project has been going for more than three years. He just puts too much value in the knowhow of a guy who has been in the company since the beginning and decides to ignore this. I am just hoping for the issue to become big enough for him to do something as ultimately I have no power over this.
Job_September_2020
Job_September_2020
"Let him fall by his own weight, we've sent incomplete deliverables because of him and lost potential customers." How does your owner/manager react ? Did he try to find the root cause of losing customers ?
mcalex
mcalex
Document, document, document. "... infuriated saying that he is available for a chat". 'Yes boss, and I've had a chat with him on Wednesday last week, Monday, and today (att: calendar.pic, chatNotes.txt), and there is still no progress on the blocking task.'
Stef
Stef
From the second and fourth bullet points, it sounds like your coworker told you repeatedly that he agreed to use the tools and that if you had an issue with him you could "have a chat" about it, but that your answer was always "No, I don't want to talk about it." Can you clarify? Perhaps this situation could be deescalated and solved by just talking with your coworker and explaining your viewpoint to them.
Philipp
Philipp
Whenever I read one of those "my coworker is incompetent and my manager ignores it" stories, I wonder how the other side of the story would sound like.
user568497
08:13
The other side of the story is that the guy does not believe I communicate with him enough and that he is available for a chat through Teams when needed, he is still reluctant to use the internal tools for collaboration and he is starting to take things personal and acting aggressive because I told him I won't chase him for answers anymore or give face for him after doing so for an urgent topic four times over a period of two months in writing and many others in meetings which resulted in no answer and a low quality deliverable. I think I have exhausted my good will.
Gregory Currie
Gregory Currie
@Milten Chasing up a colleague 4 times in 2 months is nothing.
user568497
4 times in writing, and many others in weekly meetings which he did not attend or did not state clearly what he was working on. He does not update the internal tools either for tracking purposes or for others to figure out what needs to be done or who is working on what. It is not a pattern I want to continue regardless, I am not his manager.
user3067860
user3067860
So you're sending them pull requests and tickets and then complaining because they don't check Git/Jira/whatever, but you also won't message them on Teams?
user568497
@user3067860 I do not message him to remind him to update his Jira tickets or to check for code reviews because he would know if he participated in scrum meetings where we share our daily progress with everyone in the team. He simply stays out of the loop because he does not follow internal processes or tools and I already told him this in terms of teamwork it is an issue. I message him about urgent stuff in teams and even then it is rarely useful as he does not give clear answers (because most of the time he is slacking off...) and just rushes changes a few days before delivery.
kedavle
kedavle
Do you have sprint retrospectives or something where you talk about how you work together? Where something like this might also come up.
user3067860
user3067860
08:13
What part of the world are you in? Specifically, are you in a part of the world where there's some expectation that every part of your job is documented in your contract, or are you in a part of the world where contracts typically include amorphous "and other duties" clauses that could include, e.g., handhold this one person?
user568497
@user3067860 I have the responsabilities written down in the contract, I do not remember explicitly if there is "another duties as required" kind of sentence. I feel it does not matter though, because If I need to get to the point of bringing my contract up to the owner I would probably consider just leaving first. I am more concerned about setting expectations that I won't be the caretaker of this guy or respond for his actions without authority over him, but I think I've already managed to do that.
Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen
Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen
Would dropping a line on the teams chat as he requested similar to "Do you have an estimate on when X will be ready?" be an option? That is what he has asked for, and you can repeat it daily for all outstanding blockers.
 
3 hours later…
user568497
11:26
I am afraid asking daily or periodically might come up as being pushy and he starts to take it personal or just ignore it. Realistically the internal tools allow to get periodic notifications. But the core issue is much larger than this, as a team we are as strong as our weakest link, if we have someone that does not believe in teamwork or makes it difficult we will always have this bottleneck and a limited throughput.
user568497
That is why I am pushing for a solution that involves him being part of the internal workflows that everyone else in the company is part of, and I am at a standpoint where I think would need authority to do so rather than good faith and good intentions as I believe I have already exhausted those.

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